President Donald Trump deleted a racist video on his social media account that depicted former President and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys, following criticism from a bipartisan group of members of Congress.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) wrote on X on Friday morning, before the post was deleted. “The President should remove it.”
The post, a minutelong video rife with conspiracy theories about voting machines in the 2020 election, cuts to a short clip of the Obamas in monkey form, dancing to the tune of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” a 1961 song featured in the Disney hit, “The Lion King.”
Depicting Black people as monkeys or apes is a centuries-old racist trope.
The post drew widespread backlash from Democrats. But the criticism from Scott — a longtime ally of Trump, once viewed as a potential vice presidential candidate, and the only Black Republican in the Senate — is particularly notable.
In a statement issued before Scott’s criticism, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the backlash and said the clip came from a longer video that showed Trump as the Lion King and depicted top Democrats as jungle characters. Among others, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — all longtime rivals of the president — are shown as an elephant, boar, meerkat and giraffe, respectively.
But none of the other Democrats was included in Trump's post.
"This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Leavitt said. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public."
Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) joined Scott by calling on Trump to take the post down.
"Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this," Ricketts wrote on X. "The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize."
So too did Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.).
“The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake — and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered,” he wrote on X.
Following the backlash, the post was deleted. A statement from a White House official — sent from an unsigned press email address — confirmed the video was removed and claimed an unidentified staffer had posted it to the president's social media account.
The Obama Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has long courted controversy on social media. Last September, he posted a vulgar AI-generated deepfake video featuring Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, with Jeffries in a sombrero as he spoke to reporters.
“Bigotry will get you nowhere,” Jeffries wrote on X shortly afterward.
Ben Johansen contributed to this report.
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